Bleeding Tomatoes: A Golden Shovel

After Chen Chen

I am minimal but specific in what I ask for, and as such, many see me as unfriendly. but see the broody silkie hen who sits as quietly as the eggs she rests atop, warming a bed of eggs that will never hatch? She is unlike soft tomatoes which spill expected red at spicular touch, but instead she is grit guzzling and egg-expecting, giving mercy to her silent kin, always waiting, to cradle them underneath the chin of her haunches. She is me, and I, her, foolishly strong & awaiting always waiting & do you see now why I dream of having one silkie chicken (that bares white shirtfront)?

Amber Zou is a junior at Phillips Exeter Academy originally from Houston, Texas. She is an alumna of Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, and has received recognition for her poems and prose through Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, school prizes, and school publications. She is a lover of lowercase letters, her dog, Mae, and La Croix.